The Use of Interteaching to Evaluate Short - and Long-Term Concept Retention

Introduction Interteaching offers instructors an alternative teaching method that provides the teacher a full lesson plan run by the students with feedback on the student population’s grasp of lesson material toward the end of the lesson. We examined the use of interteaching with 2 through 4 year undergraduates to determine if interteaching is more effective for long-term concept retention than traditional lecture methods. These objectives were accomplished in a surveying course as well as a psychology course using multiple-choice, as well as, math problems focused on key concepts. We compared sections that had interteaching to those that did not and also established a comparison of each section when each had the same teaching technique. In the surveying course three class sections (n = 33) went through the first 15 lessons using the standard lecture format and then answered questions on the first test. Using the results of the first test as a base comparison, over the next 25 lessons 1 of the 3 sections consisted of the lecture while the other 3 sections received interteaching classes. In the psychology course two sections (n=30 and n=43) were selected. Utilizing an alternating treatments design each section received instruction on the same materials; however, the sections alternated between the interteaching methods and traditional lecture methods. We evaluated long-term concept retention by linking exam and quiz questions performance and compared the results of the interteaching method to the standard lecture method. We hypothesized that students would perform better on test and quiz questions when they received interteaching on that block of material than those that had standard lecture. Upon completion of the study, in every case the interteaching average result was as good as, if not better than tradition teaching method results.